Who’s the Trump Immigration Pivot For?

By spocko, on August 22nd, 2016

August 20, 2016 BuzzFeed News:

In Reversal, Trump Indicates To Hispanic Leaders Openness To Legalization For Immigrants

In a Saturday meeting with his newly announced Hispanic advisory council, Donald Trump suggested he is interested in figuring out a “humane and efficient” manner to deal with immigrants in the country illegally, according to three sources. — BuzzFeed News Adrian Carrasquillo

This was exciting news since it seemed to indicate the pivot the mainstream media has been looking for since the primaries ended. So of course they jumped on it:

But before the pixels on the MSM’s story were even dry, the right-wing news outlets were reassuring their audience that those stories are all liberal media lies. And we know this since their new house organ, Breitbart News, told them so explicitly.

Exclusive – RNC Official at Trump’s Hispanic Meeting Debunks False BuzzFeed, Univision Reports that Donald Succumbed to Amnesty Activists
“The Trump campaign’s and RNC’s swift dismissal of the inaccurate reports that he would back amnesty for illegal aliens comes after BuzzFeed and Univision falsely reported that Trump told Hispanic activists he would.”—Breitbart, August 21, 2016

The Problem With The Media’s ‘Trump Is Pivoting’ Narrative by Tyler Cherry. Image by Dayanita Ramesh and Sarah Wasko

Trump’s comment on immigration to his Hispanic advisory council was designed for two groups of people.

1) The GOP establishment base. Now they can pretend that Trump is a “reasonable” human being, as least that will be their rationalization for why they voted/supported him.

2) The mainstream media. The mainstream media really want this story for multiple reasons. They finally get to prove they were right: “Just as we predicted, Trump is moving toward the center! Because of this softening of his rhetoric Trump will get the moderate undecided swing voters that might have gone to Hillary.” They can now justify taking Trump seriously. Monday morning on NPR Cokie Roberts gave credit to New Donald Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway for this move.

Here’s the deal, the media need to take Trump seriously, because if they don’t then it shows how outrageous Trumps comments are to rational people. I was watching Trevor Noah on the Daily Show saying multiple times. “Trump’s a joke!” He doesn’t have to pretend Trump sounds like cartoon character. Also the mainstream media like a 50/50 horse race, one-sided blowouts are boring to them. Trump gives them three things: conflict, novelty and entertainment. Add in some blood, and he would lead the local evening news too.

What perplexes some people is why this “reasonable Trump” isn’t pissing off his base more. It’s because Trump’s base doesn’t don’t believe anything the MSM says. They don’t read them or watch them. If they do hear of anything, their own publications explain why the MSM’s stories should be ignored.

I love to make predictions since, like all the right-wing pundits on the war, there are no consequences for being wrong. And, like the dirty hippies regarding the war, there are no rewards for being right.

So I confidently predict– with 112% accuracy–that the mainstream media will be asking when Hillary will start her move right to “the center” where the “Very Serious People Who Know How The Economy Really Works” live. Of course they have been wrong 100% of the time but they still have the ear of the MSM, who represent the .01%. So keep an eye out for any hippy punching or Bernie bashing.

It would be nice to see someone in the media question this conventional wisdom of movement. Why does Trump pivoting to centrist views mean Hillary will to move right? Because that is what we have seen happen multiple times in the past? But isn’t this election different?

I think Trump’s pivot left is a huge opportunity for Hillary to move further left, not right. Imagine that! Actually I can, since I’m reading the fascinating book Trekonomics: The Economics of Star Trek by Manu Saadia and I’ve been listening to Mission Log podcasts about the optimistic future Gene Roddenberry and Star Trek postulated.

I’m no Very Serious Person, but wouldn’t Hillary get more votes moving to the left than the right? My thought is more votes are available on the left than the right. I know that for Trump there are more votes available for him to move left–to the far right center. (I don’t think there is even room for Trump to move Führer further right.)

If Trump moves left and loses, his reluctant GOP supporters can breathe a sigh of relief. They can say, “He wasn’t conservative enough!” His true believers can scream, “KAAAAHHHHNNN!!” and then go on to attack Hillary 24/7 with the same kind of violent threats that Trump normalized during the campaign.

If Clinton moves right and wins, conventional wisdom will be proven correct–even if that wasn’t the reason she won. If she moves left and wins, conventional wisdom will be proven wrong, but the media and pundits won’t acknowledge it. The conventional wisdom will be about how Trump was never going to win anyway.

The sane comments Trump is making are really for the establishment media. They will report them diligently and bring them up every time a previous conflicting statement is mentioned. You will know when you hear the phrase, “To be fair, Trump recently said..” Or they will credit his campaign hoping that Trump is listening to the “very smart people” Trump promises will advise him.

Tyler Cherry of Media Matters did a great piece in June about the problems with the media accepting this pivot narrative.

I think many of the media want to turn to the camera after an especially egregious ridiculous Trump comment and say, “Can you believe this? Trump actually said this — with a straight face.” But this is not the Daily Show, and they can’t throw back to the studio saying, “Reporting from Washington, I’m Luke Potato. Jon?”